Influence of circulation patterns on temperature behavior at the regional scale: A case study investigated via neural network modeling.

An analysis of the influence of circulation patterns on temperature changes in an extended Italian Alpine area has been performed by nonlinear methods and neural network modeling. This leads to the clarification of the roles of these patterns in the various seasons and permits the development of models that are able to reconstruct in a satisfactory manner the behavior of temperature anomalies in the second half of the twentieth century in this limited region. This nonlinear analysis shows that the role of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is probably overestimated, and that European blocking and the Scandinavian pattern should be considered as prime candidates as temperature drivers in this area.